civilized ku # 152 ~ rooftop parking
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 10:29AM 
Prudential Center rooftop parking ~ Newark, NJ • click to embiggenFollowing up on the buy this book entry of a few days ago, I thought I would mention what I got out of my $37.42 MFA tuition fee. That is, what I got other than the visual, intellectual, and emotional pleasure and incitement I derived from the pictures themselves.
As many here may know, my ku body of work - and all of its related derivatives (civilized, man & nature, urban, et al), even when pared down to those pictures made within the borders of the Adirondack Park, currently contains nearly 1,000 pictures. The number is so large that it almost defies editing but, of course, the number is so large it requires editing.
That said, the most difficult problem that I have faced when it comes to editing the work is establishing the criteria for editing. That is to say, what exactly the organizing principle would be for editing.
After printing out a huge number of prints from the work, I came to several conclusions in as much as it became obvious that I could create a number of categories / sub-bodies of work organized by subject - trees, rocks, water, structures, and so on - or by POV - close, middle distance, or "grand" scenic. Or, I could easily do it by season or even by geographic locale within the park.
There were quite a number of possibilities which only added another level of difficulties involved in the decision process. The more I thought about it, the more I become edit-incapacitated. My brain seized up.
Although, about a year ago (almost to the day) I did come up with an idea that I labeled Discursive Promiscuity. On hindsight and after viewing McPhee's book it has occurred to me that I should have quit thinking about it while I was ahead.
My problem was/is that I was too concerned with concept. Or, at the very least, too concerned with defining the concept before the egg was hatched, so to speak. It seems that I was making a huge mistake in trying to precisely and definitively define the concept for the viewers of my pictures as opposed to letting them sort it out for themselves by just viewing the work.
I was just plain trying too hard to be Art-istic.
That's more than just a bit strange for me, a real disconnect, in as much as I picture without any thought of being Art-istic whatsoever. I really do just try to go with the unthought known flow when I am out and about picturing. And, after the fact of picturing, I edit my shoot in pretty much the same manner. I process and print by "feel" as opposed to making selections based on any overarching Art-istic criteria.
However, up until now - and again I must emphasize the influence of McPhee's River of No Return and especially the accompanying writings - I have not been able to edit my work along the lines of seeing the work holistically - that is to say, concerned with wholes rather than analysis or separation into parts.
Actually, I need to add a level of clarity to that sentence - I have not been able to edit my ku work along the lines of seeing the work holistically. My ku body of work is, as I recognized over a year ago, far too discursive and promiscuous to have a simple editing methodology - trying to force things into a hierarchy of categorization for the purpose of defining a concept is absolutely not the way to go.
I realize now that it must be - as Robert Hass wrote about McPhee's work - "organized like a long poem or a piece of music". That my Adirondack-based ku is "a stunning look at an actual place" and is a "meditation" on a discursive and somewhat promiscuous look at that place, which, in fact, is the concept.
But, here's the thing - I think that I subconsciously knew all along the way that I was making music or a long poem. However, what I have been lacking is a firmly held belief that my music/poem was something that others might want to see and find worth considering. And, perhaps even more important, my (self-paralyzing) attempt to pre-define concept and meaning was most likely little more than an "excuse" to excuse myself from submitting myself (and, obviously, my work) to the possible pain of rejection.
That said, here's one the things from the writings in McPhee's book - from the essay by Joanne Lukitsh - that freed my mind up relative to the intrinsic value of my ku work (whether others "get it" or not):
Landscapes, as environmental theorist and historian John Brinckerhoff Jackson has long argued, are never natural, because they depict human meanings in the environment. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the scale of human transformation of the global environment is so great that these changes exceed any single mode of knowledge, or unique visionary insight. Yet the need for imaginatively understanding the interdependence of human and natural forces has concomitantly never been greater. One way of encouraging this understanding has been to recognize the importance of place, to learn how the network of history, property, culture, and personalities meshes with local material conditions and ecosystems. - underlined emphasis mine
I knew that. And that's why, even if it was an unthought known, I've been composing my music/poem for the past 5 years.
Reader Comments (2)
I think "cease" would mean "end of existence" as in "die". "Seize up" like in a piston seizing would be more like it perhaps? http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/seize
thanks Mike - "seized" it is